Video: Symmetry Works! Where Math Meets Art

September 13, 2016 by Tom Porter

Symmetry is the buzzword on campus this week, as Santa Clara University mathematics professor Frank Farris showcases his unique style of digital art in a major, interdisciplinary, multi-event project called Symmetry Works! A lecture September 12 in Kresge Auditorium kicked off three days of events, including a workshop and a seminar, which are all open to the public. Meanwhile a selection of Farris’s work will be on display in the Main Gallery of the Edwards Center for Art and Dance until Sept. 23.

In his book Creating Symmetry: The Artful Mathematics of Wallpaper Patterns, published in 2015 by Princeton University Press, Farris explained a new process for creating art via computational technology based on the mathematical theory of symmetry. During the summer of 2016, two Bowdoin computer science students helped develop open-source software to make the Farris design process accessible to a wider artistic community.